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| Geithner to Business: We Don't Hate You |
| 2010-07-09 |
| Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner has launched an economic charm offensive, attempting to assure banking and corporate executives that the Obama administration isn't anti-business, FOX Business Network has learned. The effort by Geithner, according to senior corporate executives with direct knowledge of the matter, is designed to counter criticisms from several prominent CEOs that President Obama is at war with American businesses, through policies that are squeezing profits and job creation, and class-warfare rhetoric that has taken particular aim at US banks as Congress gets ready to enact new financial-reform legislation. The public criticisms have come from former Obama supporters in the business community like Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg, head of the Business Roundtable, who recently said that "we have reached a point where the negative effects of these policies are simply too significant to ignore." General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt also reportedly blasted the president's economic policies during a meeting with executives in Rome. Later a spokesman for GE said the remarks were taken out of context, but people who know Immelt confirm his growing dissatisfaction with the administration's economic policies. Another Obama supporter, JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon, has publicly attacked the president. In private meetings he has blasted not just the president's push for financial reform, which could shave earnings in the banking business anywhere from 5-10%, but also the president's economic agenda of higher spending and more entitlements like health care. A spokesman for Dimon, who in 2009 was a frequent White House visitor, had no comment. Now Geithner is trying to rebuild these relationships that had helped Obama get elected president, as many in the business community, particularly banks and Wall Street firms, were major contributors to his campaign. His pitch is pretty simple: The Obama administration doesn't want to destroy Corporate America, and views business as "not the problem, but the solution," said one person with knowledge of the matter. A spokeswoman for the Treasury Secretary confirmed Geithner's recent outreach. "Every day, Secretary Geithner talks to business leaders on Main Street and Wall Street about the state of the economy and what we can do to reinforce growth and recovery -- led by the private sector. That type of consultation isn't particularly newsworthy; it's part of his job," she told FOX Business. Big business and Wall Street in particular had overwhelmingly supported Democrats in the 2008 election cycle, but data from the Center for Responsive politics show a more even split in donations in 2010, including at Democratic stronghold Goldman Sachs, a trend that has the White House on edge. "Geithner has been working the phones telling business leaders that Obama doesn't hate them because the administration is feeling the backlash and realizing that bashing corporate America is undermining the recovery," said one senior executive at a major bank. "But the damage may already be done." |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #11 Oddly haven't gotten around to installing any of those CFLs. Still rockin' the 300-W halogen here in the office, in fact. |
| Posted by: eLarson 2010-07-09 18:05 |
| #10 General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt is a weasel who backed Obama to the hilt to create new markets for his flagging company. Remember GE-owned NBC's "green TV" where they would flog green messages in every program they aired? Hope you like your new mandated florescent light bulbs. |
| Posted by: regular joe 2010-07-09 15:14 |
| #9 Turbo Tim can say what he likes, but the soap bubble's already been popped as far as any businessman trusting this administration. There's a 2,000-page bill lurking under every rock. And no matter how you slice it, if the deficit stays north of a trillion, there is a giant tax increase headed toward us all like a freight train. |
| Posted by: Matt 2010-07-09 14:14 |
| #8 You gotta wonder what some of these bastards were thinking when they bank rolled Barry's run. |
| Posted by: Jefferson 2010-07-09 12:56 |
| #7 Has any Treasury Secretary every had to assure executives that his administration wasn't anti-business? RbR may well be right- the big guys can ask for exemptions, everyone else can pay up because it's 'patriotic.' |
| Posted by: Free Radical 2010-07-09 09:20 |
| #6 Geither and Obama thrift and economics: Talk is cheap! BS is free! Isn't that refreshing: one thing that doesn't include spending is useless pontification! |
| Posted by: Angereque Squank5272 2010-07-09 05:01 |
| #5 Our CFO is pushing all possible purchases into this year because of the coming tax changes on Jan 1 2011. We will be making practically no purchases after that time no matter what happens to the tax laws because we will have pushed every conceivable purchase required in 2011 into 2010. Get that? If you relax the tax laws after the first of the year they aren't going to have much impact because people have already pushed the transactions they had planned for 2011 into 2010 Obama is an idiot. That is all. |
| Posted by: crosspatch 2010-07-09 04:24 |
| #4 Easier to control when things are all pre-centralized, right? |
| Posted by: gorb 2010-07-09 02:57 |
| #3 RbR pretty much nails it. And there's a word for this kinda thing: Fascism. |
| Posted by: Rex Mundi 2010-07-09 02:15 |
| #2 Ogabe and his merry band aren't at war with big business, far from it. The big guys will sit by smiling as government crushes their existing smaller competitors and raises barriers-to-entry in their industries, keeping entrepreneurs out. What's really going on is a war on small businesses, starving them of credit and paralyzing them with regulatory and economic uncertainty. It's basically dekulakization without all those icky corpses. |
| Posted by: Ricky bin Ricardo (Abu Babaloo) 2010-07-09 02:00 |
| #1 Employing Geinther to rebuild corporate relationships and campaign funding streams takes political desperation to an entirely new level. More please, I'll say when. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2010-07-09 01:35 |